The Inspiration for Mind-Control Conspiracy Theories Faces Its Demise

Alaska's High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) studies the upper atmosphere—and has been accused of causing earthquakes and conducting mind-control experiments. This June, it could close its doors forever.

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Conspiracy theorists can relax a little bit. An enigmatic military research facility, blamed for everything from floods to earthquakes to supposed mind control, is shutting down this summer. The HAARP program—totem of dictators, featured on The X-Files and in Tom Clancy books, inspiration for a rock album—is out of cash.

HAARP, for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is an atmospheric research site in a remote area of Alaska. Scientists use radio transmitters and antennas to heat up the ionosphere, which allows them to study how particles behave in that uppermost atmospheric layer. Researchers have used HAARP to create an artificial aurora, to communicate with submarines, and to study the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth. The system has been offline since spring 2013, a victim of federal budget woes. But it remains a crucial science laboratory, says Dennis Papadopoulos, a physicist at the University of Maryland who works with HAARP.

"If we didn't know the radio science of the ionosphere, we wouldn't have TV reception from satellites, we wouldn't have GPS, we wouldn't have any of that," he says. "Understanding the behavior of the ionosphere is fundamental, not only in science but also for technology."

Studying Space

At its heart, HAARP is a radar system, using 360 transmitters and 180 antennas to produce 3.6 megawatts of power. Radio waves in the 2.8 to 10 megahertz spectrum reach 62 miles and 370 miles above Earth. This energizes electrons in the ionosphere, a gossamer layer of charged particles at the approximate altitude of the International Space Station and other satellites.

Astronomers like Papadopoulos can then use the ionosphere as a laboratory. Scientists can study how electromagnetic waves interact with plasmas, how the solar wind interacts with Earth's atmosphere, how auroras form, and the basic science of charged particles. Last year, for example, NASA launched a pair of probes to study the Van Allen belts, layers of plasma held in place by Earth's magnetic field. HAARP can send signals to these plasma belts, which the satellites can detect and use as measuring tools, Papadopoulos says.

"We can create a perturbation, and see what we can observe," he says. "We can whistle at the probes and say, 'Did you hear the whistle, or is it a longer whistle?'"

There are similar facilities elsewhere on Earth, but they're not as powerful: One is in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and another is in Russia. The closest HAARP counterpart is at a European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) facility in Tromsø, Norway, that is used by seven countries, including China. Papadopoulos says that by closing HAARP, the U.S. is ceding ground to countries like China. But David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology, and engineering, told a Senate committee that HAARP is "not an area that we have any need for in the future," according to the Anchorage Daily News.

"We're moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do—to inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it," Walker told Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. "But that work has been completed."

Weather Manipulation and Mind Control

HAARP has been a fixture in conspiracy theories since its inception in the early 1990s. More recently, in 2010 Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez said HAARP was to blame for the devastating Haitian earthquake; he said it was a weapon that could also create "weather anomalies to cause floods, droughts, and hurricanes." That same year, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said HAARP was causing floods in Pakistan, and he later claimed the West was using it to steal Iran's rain.

Some of these theories stem from the far-out justifications for HAARP's existence, many of them enabled by former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who wielded great power over the federal budget and earmarked about $300 million to build it. When HAARP came online in 2007, officials extolled its ability to neutralize the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear attack from North Korea, among other military uses. It would go like this: North Korea launches a nuclear bomb on an intercontinental ballistic missile, which explodes 70 miles above Earth. This unleashes high-energy electrons in the ionosphere, which can knock out satellite-based communications relays.

Papadopolous says high-frequency radio waves, like those produced at HAARP, could push those electrons away, thereby protecting our communication infrastructure. But, he says, "HAARP is not going to be the system that will do it. It is really the laboratory that teaches us how to do it."

A good conspiracy theory never dies, though. Stevens was voted out of office in 2008 and died in a plane crash two years later. His replacement is Mark Begich, a Democrat whose brother Nick is an outspoken proponent of HAARP conspiracy theories. Nick Begich's book Angels Don't Play This HAARP claims the installation can use its powerful electromagnetic waves to incite "mental disruption throughout a region." That's also a key plot point in the Tom Clancy novel "Breaking Point," in which an Alaska-based "atmospheric weapon" is used to induce mass psychosis.

As for the earthquake conspiracy? Papadopoulos points to Nikola Tesla himself. He invented a steam-powered generator that he called an electro-mechanical oscillator, which vibrated rapidly to produce electricity. In old age, he told a story that the oscillator created a "resonance" in several buildings, which people reported as an earthquake. Papadopoulos says this is the basis for the HAARP earthquake claims.

As for mind control? "If that were true, they wouldn't shut us down," Papadopoulos laughs.

Is This the End?

Papadopoulos is among a few scientists trying to find new ways to fund and operate HAARP. He favors a consortium of research institutions paying fees to use it, and wants Congress to pay $2 or $3 million a year for the next three to five years to keep it going in the interim. But they'd better act fast: The military is not just shutting HAARP down, but preparing to bulldoze it.

The final DARPA-sponsored experiment is set to end in June, according to Nature. In classic DARPA-acronym fashion, it's called Basic Research on Ionospheric Characteristics and Effects, or BRIOCHE. After that, the bulldozers will arrive, Papadopoulos says. "There are amazing things we can do with HAARP," he says. "Don't destroy it, just keep it there."